To navigate these difficult conceptual waters we need some rules. Here are three suggestions (the violence can be direct–as sometimes prescribed by the Abrahamic religions–or structural as by Hinduism):<\/p>\n
Fundamentalism has to do with inner faith, belief. Extremism has to do with outer violence against Other, and against Self (like flagellation for being a sinner). Keep them separate. And be careful.<\/p>\n
We can have fundamentalism without extremism. The fundamentalist may believe much, beyond the beliefs of others, yet not cross the border to violence. We may say: let him-her do so; it is not obvious that fundamentalists are more violent than non-fundamentalists.<\/p>\n
We can have extremism without fundamentalism. Most people exercising violence believe in nothing, beyond “doing their job”.<\/p>\n
There are two criteria for “religious extremism”: violence and<\/em> religious legitimation. That legitimation may be fundamentalist or not; could also be well-know quotes from the Scriptures. We might even speculate that for the fundamentalist faith may be sufficient.<\/p>\n The combination in “religious extremism” is vicious if it implies that violence will be supported by divine forces and\/or that failure to be violent will incur their wrath. Probably a declining category.<\/p>\n Today’s secularizing, “enlightened” world brought us statism, nationalism, and their combination; secular fundamentalists and extremists, and their combination. They have given the world more violence for victory for whatever cause they design than religions. But with a rationality that may open for solving underlying conflicts.<\/p>\n How about the traditional “world religions” in this perspective?<\/p>\n The three Abrahamic and Hinduism with divine forces; and Buddhism, Daoism-Confucianism and Shinto without? Where do we find religious extremism as defined above; and where not? Obviously, some of it everywhere, nothing somewhere, but generally speaking?<\/p>\n Judaismn has religious extremism as right and duty to conquer and defend the Promised Holy Land (Genesis 15:18, wrath of divine forces in Deuteronomy, for structural violence Isaiah 2:1-4).<\/p>\n Christianity has religious extremism built as violence against non-believers (Luke 19:26)–hence also to spread Christianity–but has rules against retribution (turning the other cheek).<\/p>\n Islam has norms against spreading Islam by the sword, but uses violence against infidels, particularly against apostates, and uses violence for “retribution with moderation”.<\/p>\n Summary: Judaic religious extremism is territorial, Christian is missionary, Islamic is punitive. SUM: ex occidente bellum<\/em>.<\/p>\n Hinduism has internal structural violence built into the caste system, with a history of direct violence to establish it and keep it. Nonviolence to cows serves as an opening to nonviolence in general.<\/p>\n Buddhism has violence in obscure texts but generally prescribes nonviolence. If Buddhists are violent (Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand) it is not qua<\/em> Buddhists, but as defenders of a state with Buddhism.<\/p>\n Daoism is ambiguous: every human holon has forces-counterforces, not necessarily violent; but a rising yin or yang may be “helped”.<\/p>\n Confucianism deplores “bad emperor” violence, but is feudal structural violence, with rights and duties both high up and low down. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Shinto is peaceful, but state Shinto was a construction inspired by Christian state religions justifying warfare external violence under Sun Goddess Amaterasu-o-mikami<\/em> and Her offsprings, the Emperors.<\/p>\n Conclusion: not good enough to declare ex oriente pax<\/em>.<\/p>\n How about the secular counterparts to religions, the ideologies, the isms? Backed by human forces of rationality and compassion, and by social forces across the domestic and global faultlines nature-gender-generation-race-class-nation-territory. Religions see them as parts of the divine order; secularism sees them as changeable, for worse (slavery, colonialism, war), for better (human rights, Art 28).<\/p>\n Enlightenment came with capitalist growth against nature and the working classes; with the rule of Men, Old\/middle-aged, White; class with competitive mobility; nationalism and statism. Isms emerged, as dualist-manichean as God vs Satan, promising Paradise vs Hell, pitting Self- good vs Other-evil, with mechanisms for picking winners-losers.<\/p>\n Nature fights back, now possibly winning. Women, young and old, non-whites struggle nonviolently for parity. Afterlife Paradise and Hell no longer available, political parties fight for paradise=upper class rewards from capitalist growth against hell=poverty-misery; meaningful only if inequality prevails over distribution. Nationalism and statism struggle for parity and dominance, even globally; the mechanisms being war by the military and negotiation by the diplomats.<\/p>\n Secular fundamentalism means strong attachment to one<\/em> side in the one<\/em> faultline seen as fundamental: with this issue (gender, race, class, nation, state) solved, the others will follow automatically!<\/p>\n Secular extremism, fundamentalist or not, uses violence against the Other in gender, race, class, nation, state; if fundamentalist for the salvation of humanity, with paradise on earth around the corner.<\/p>\n Secularism is Western. It is rejected by Islam and Hinduism. Buddhism focuses on means: nonviolence; China on process: yin-yang. Only Japan under Abe follows US war logic. Western secularism may actually turn out to be an episode, yielding to religious revivalism.<\/p>\n Rather work nonviolently on very many conflicts and traumas than on one giant step toward salvation-paradise, even with violence.<\/p>\n ____________________________________<\/p>\n Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is founder of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a> and rector of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU<\/a>. He <\/em>has published 164 books<\/em> on peace and related issues<\/em>, of which 41 have been translated into 35 languages, for a total of 135 book translations<\/em>, including \u2018<\/em>50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives<\/a>,\u2019 published by the <\/em>TRANSCEND University Press-TUP<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We can have extremism without fundamentalism. Most people exercising violence believe in nothing, beyond “doing their job”. There are two criteria for “religious extremism”: violence and religious legitimation. How about the secular counterparts to religions, the ideologies, the isms?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[100,107,384,99,126],"class_list":["post-69364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","tag-direct-violence","tag-religion","tag-secularism","tag-structural-violence","tag-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}